I don't understand how anyone could not take the opportunity to reconcile with an estranged family member when the possibility of death becomes a reality for one of them. I feel like I have seen enough movies and read enough books to understand the importance of making at least some kind of effort for closure when terminal illness happens. We've all seen (or read) the scene when the person dies unexpectedly, and then the family member is left wailing, "Why? Why didn't I tell him/her when I had the chance?"

I recently spoke to my estranged uncle for the first time since I was five. He lives in Hollywood and supposedly teaches acting to some famous people.
He was calling me from a pay phone. He kept having to put more change in while we spoke.
Who uses pay phones anymore? In LA?

He didn't even remember which kid I was. He was convinced I only had once sister, even though I patiently explained that I had two. I explained to him that my father, his brother, had fallen very ill and gave him my parents' phone number so he could call and touch base for the first time in over 20 years.

He flatly declined to reach out. He said he has his own problems to deal with and that their estrangement goes far before I was born, and then the phone cut out.

That was all I really got out of the conversation I had with him. That and the fact that he is very sick too. He made sure emphasize that to me repeatedly. He is not diagnosed with a terminal illness, but still. He is too busy with taking the pills for his own heart issue to want to deal with my father and their 20 year silence.

I can't believe that a man who surrounds himself with theatre, and directs plays all the time, and teaches actors to be vulnerable and emotionally available, could react this way when told his brother has cancer. How can someone see all the multitudes of plays dealing with family secrets and cathartic reunions and apologies, and not want to be open to a real live moment of that in his own life? As an actress myself, I am appalled and embarassed to call him family. To know I could share the same genes as someone so...for lack of a more potent word, FUCKED UP, scares me.

And I pity him, most of all. I pity a man whose only family in the world is my father, and us, my father's children, and he declines a chance to reconnect with us and attempt to make up for lost time.

Frankly, I now want nothing to do with him. I thought it might be amazing to share a passion for acting with someone in the family, since no one else seems to be inspired by the arts, and to pick his brain about technique or his knowledge of the beast of Hollywood. Now that I have seen so much ugliness in a few minutes of a phone call, I don't even care what he might have to say about acting.

There are some truly sad individuals out there, and he is one of them.

May I never be like that. May I always strive to be better.

EXCUSE ME WHILE I TRY TO GET BACK INTO THIS...


I am having a hard time writing lately. I think there have been lots of things going on that have busied my brain and I have not had time to get bored in the head and feel that urge to purge, so to speak. It has been a draining and emotionally taxing time for me in this month of April.

Oh, by the way, I decided I hate the month of April. Too much of a tease for me. One day it is beautiful, the next, it is snowing. F-you, April! Just give me a straight answer, will ya?

Anyway, my month went from very stressed out study mode (in order to pass an exam required for work), to taking the hardest test I have taken in a LONG time, and moved on to getting the wonderful Easter gift of a diagnosis of a terminal disease for my father. From there, it was the stress of finding out more and more about his prognosis, it was the rush to book the cheapest, quickest flight I could to my hometown that I have not seen in over 4 years, and it was the realization of my own mortality somehow through the process.

Then it was the actual plane trip to my hometown, wondering what would be in store. The arriving and seeing familiar faces from my long ago past. The sleeping in the childhood bedroom with my sisters, whispering into the night about death and love and family. The weirdness of the town...or was it the weirdness of me? The hospital room 10 hours a day, the strangers coming to visit, the final words of my father as I left the hospital room for the last time..."I love you," words he has never uttered in my presence for as long as I have lived.

Then it was the stress of freaking out about a private health scare of my own, the relief of realizing my health scare was going to be fine, and the guilty feelings resulting from my preoccupation with my own problems while my father lay in a hospital bed. Following this was a calming of my mind at last, as my father gets a little more spirit each day, as I get more comfortable with the idea of his inevitable passing.

And I am left gazing at my own life, trying to improve my own health...stopping habits I love so much that slowly kill my already suseptable insides, and trying not to beat myself up about it when I give in to the temptation to be bad to my body.
And there is the secret fear of my own self, the worry that somewhere inside I am already beginning to die. That giving up these habits is meaningless because I am already ruined and dying inside. And my life is so insignificant, and ALL life is so insignificant, so much so that I feel so small...smaller than a grain of sand in this very strange world we all have the privellage of being a part of.

And now my mind rests for a moment. And this moment is peaceful. And in it, everything makes sense and I am calm.

Ok maybe I do have some things to purge.

Shark Attack!!!!!

Friday nights seem to come and go more quietly these days. I feel old because I tend to want to just hunker down after a long week of work, and not commit myself to anything before 9pm so I can get a little R&R in before the weekend flies by in a blur of drunk eyes...

With this in mind, last Friday I agreed to see a friend's improv show at an alternative venue--an art gallery-because it started at 9pm and it sounded low key. I was in for a shock-no, make that a shock-ula.

A man who calls himself "Shark-ula" or "Shock-ula" (the jury is still out on the correct pronunciation) was invited to perform in the comedy lineup for the show by some impish, funloving improvisors. These kids knew him as a street person who frequented local stores and cafes, attempting to sell his "rap" CDs. I put quotes around the word rap for a reason. This man came in drunk and hopped up on drugs and could not shut the hell up through every performance before his own. Once he actually took the stage, he could barely speak/rap because he was so hammered. He proceeded to trip over his tiny amp and wrap lots of caution tape around his sweaty forehead, all the while making lame rhymes, my favorite of which was "I got more bricks than a BRICK LAYER!" Indeed.

Just when we all were as uncomfortable as we thought we could get, what with being an ALL white audience in a gleaming white walled, brightly lit posh art gallery in Boystown listening to a drunken African American homeless man spit vulgar lyrics about womens' body parts and bricklayers, the worst began to unfold before our very wide eyes.

My friend's improv show began with the lovely premise of two people making coffee drinks for audience members, and the hilarity that ensues. Mr. Shark-ula again could not keep his dribbling, drunken mouth shut, so he was asked to leave. He refused and the show went on, after he yelled a couple of phrases along the lines of "It's because I am black."
Things calmed down, but then someone in the show mentioned The Million Man March...not the best thing for a mentally ill drunk homeless African American thinking he is being judged to hear. Shark-ula decided to scream out again, this time throwing his beer bottle at the floor before him. The bottle shattered all over everyone, and he jumped up swinging at anything around.

After thrashing for a few minutes, tripping over couches and tables and throwing things around, sort of Tazmanian Devil style, about 5 men were able to throw their bodies on top of him to hold him down and docile for a while while we called the police. Surprisingly, nothing was broken, not even the massive hanging art piece that Shark-ula decided to slam into in his raging fit. I think only the couch was broken in the whole ordeal. Pretty impressive, I must say.

So our night ended with a ill man thrown in jail for what he thinks is "being black" and meanwhile my friend's show never really began because of this man's disrespect. Oh, and some furniture was thrown and punches taken by innocent bystanders.

And I paid 7 dollars for all this action.

I feel less bad about enjoying quiet Fridays now.